Voices of Depression

I first tried to commit suicide at the age of seven, with intermittent attempts until one day in my twenties a boyfriend told me how to succeed - he was a doctor. Probably then I realised that I didn´t want to kill myself, but experience some of what "normal" people felt.

I was crying for no reason, I hated myself, felt inadequate and just didn’t have the energy to do my job properly. It got to the stage where I could not even take care of my children anymore, I forgot how to do things and gradually started to sink into a big black drain hole and could not get out.

I do not understand how it is that my life came to be the way it is. How I ended up this way. I had a great life. I come from a great family, did well in school, had a nice job, a ton of friends and plenty of hobbies. I’ve never had any problems. And then suddenly, I was drowning in quicksand. It all just stopped. I couldn’t get out of bed and didn’t have the energy to interact with anyone anymore.

I lost who I was and wonder whether I will ever be me again. Or whether this is the new me: somebody who is too tired to even smile, somebody who just wants to cry at the sight of happy people, somebody who has to hurt herself to just feel anything

Depression – a Serious, but Common Illness

Not many dare to talk about being depressed, but that doesn’t mean nobody is. Worldwide more than 350 million people suffer from depression, resulting in an estimated one million suicides each year. In Europe, approximately 7% of the population suffers from a major depression, with the number rising to a staggering 25% if anxiety and lighter forms of depression are included.